Film room: Johnny Wilson, the biggest vertical threat in the 2024 NFL Draft class

Wideout was recruited by Antonio Pierce at Arizona State

While wide receiver isn’t a pressing need for the Las Vegas Raiders during the 2024 NFL Draft, the Raiders only have five wideouts on the roster so the team could use some depth at the position. Meanwhile, Florida State’s Johnny Wilson is currently projected as a fourth-round pick, via NFL Mock Draft Database, and has a connection to Antonio Pierce.

Back in 2020, Pierce recruited Wilson to Arizona State where the receiver began his college career before transferring ahead of the 2022 campaign. Now, there’s a chance those two can reunite in Las Vegas.

But beyond having a preexisting relationship with the head coach, the 6-foot-6 and 231-pound Wilson, who earned a 9.70 RAS at the NFL Combine, could bring a unique skill set to the Raiders’ offense as a bigger receiver who can win down the field. He logged 84 catches for 1,517 yards and seven touchdowns with a 14.8-yard average depth of target during his two years in Tallahassee, according to Pro Football Focus.

So, let’s roll the tape and see what the former Seminole has to offer.

Something that stands out about Wilson’s tape is that he’s good at using his hands to beat press coverage. He has a tough assignment here with a slant route against a press corner playing with inside leverage.

However, the wideout gets aggressive and attacks the corner, using his hands to release into the route. From there, he shows some good acceleration to create separation and digs out a low pass to move the chains.

We’ll get a similar rep here, but Wilson runs a dig route instead of a slant. Again, he’s facing press coverage and uses his hands to defend against the defensive back’s jam and can get into his route unimpeded.

At the top of the route, he shows good change of direction skills for a taller wide receiver to help sell the vertical. Watch how LSU’s safety opens his hips toward the sideline to defend the go route and ends up getting turned around when the wideout breaks inside. Also, Wilson doesn’t drift after cutting and stays close to the 40-yard line to help maximize his separation.

In my opinion, Wilson is underrated after the catch. Here, he breaks one tackle, makes another defender miss and refuses to go down easy to tack on an extra 10 yards. For perspective, he dropped to 3.8 YAC per reception this past year, but his 7.1 YAC per catch in 2022 was tied for fourth among ACC receivers and 0.7 yards better than Zay Flowers, per PFF.

This time, the Florida State product uses his feet to defeat press coverage with a nice foot-fire release off of the line of scrimmage. He also does a good job of attacking the corner’s leverage and selling the outside release to get the corner turned around and out of phase.

For a guy that’s over 6-foot-6, he sinks his hips well on the curl route to get out of the break. Also, I like how he works back to the quarterback to make sure the defender can’t recover and make a play on the ball. Granted, this is a nine-yard catch on third and 13, but the route is impressive and the offense is at least in a better position to go for it on fourth down.

On this rep, Wilson finds the hole in Clemson’s zone coverage and has the awareness to sit in it and give the quarterback a window to throw into. Also, this highlights his ability to make catches in traffic. As soon as he gets his hands on the ball, Wilson tucks it away and has the body control to turn his back to the linebacker, protecting himself and preventing the backer from creating an incompletion with a big hit.

In a way, this clip kind of ties everything discussed above together.

Wilson attacks the press corner’s outside leverage and sells the outside release off the line of scrimmage. Then, he shows good acceleration to win and tracks the ball well in the air to adjust to the throw. To finish, he knows the safety is coming and holds onto the ball through contact to create an explosive play down the field for the offense.

It’s hard to find receivers who are this big, can win deep and are willing to make catches in traffic.

We’ll end with one more deep route.

Again, Wilson attacks the press corner’s leverage and has a nice burst of speed off the line to win deep. This is a difficult over-the-shoulder catch since the ball is a little far out in front of him, but he shows some strong hands to make the grab anyway and create another explosive play.